The enterprise computing systems of a typical business are becoming increasingly distributed and complex, while also generating increasingly vast amounts of data. The field of business dynamics attempts to model such generated data in order to understand and manage a business based on all relevant variables. In view of the complexity and volume of data, it is quite difficult to capture the relevant variables and identify their influence on one another.
FIG. 1 illustrates known process 100 for operating on enterprise components 110. Enterprise components 110 include domain experts 112 who operate business computing systems 114 and analyze log data 116 generated by systems 114. Modeller 101 initially consults with experts 112 in an attempt to manually capture important processes, strategic goals, and all elements which influence the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)/goals under study. Due to the limitations of human understanding, modeller 101 then produces a highly simplified and abstracted model of system 114. A large number of relevant variables are generally not considered or captured by the model.
Modeller 101 connects all the captured elements, based on her understanding, in order to create Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) 102, which indicate the dependencies among the captured elements. Modeller 101 transforms the CLDs into a State & Flow diagram (SFD) 103, which visualizes the material/resources flowing through system 114. Annotated SFD 105 is then manually generated based on SFD 103 and on available system data 104. Annotated SFD 105 includes manually-created definitions of the parameter values and equations in SFD 103, in order to drive simulated system 106. Generation of annotated SFD 105 therefore requires strong understanding of the target domain and mathematical expertise to determine the parameters and equations. Simulated system 106, driven by annotated SFD 105, generates simulation results 107 for the KPIs under study. Modeller 101 and domain experts 112 manually review (108) and compare the results with the actual behavior of system 114, to identify possible flaws either in the structure of the formal models or their annotated equations. As signified by the dashed arrows of FIG. 1, all steps of process 100 are performed manually with the exception of the simulation of system 106 based on annotated SFD 105.
Process 100 is heavily abstracted, manually-driven, and time-consuming Process 100 is therefore both inaccurate and poorly scalable for today's complex business systems.